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unbridgeabledistances · 3 years

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hi y’all<3 here’s a new section of the gallavich as seen from alternate POVs fic, this time featuring lip!!!! (i wanted to wait til after the ✨lickey drama✨ in the new ep before posting, but then i decided against it bc i didn’t want to re-write this lol)

i started to have way too many feelings while writing this so it’s a little lengthy and contemplative, but rest assured it features some domestic fluff/ian and mickey being disgustingly in love- i hope u enjoy<3

Lip shuffled into the kitchen of the Gallagher house, opening the fridge door and reaching past the clanging beer bottles to grab a metal soda can on the way back of the shelf, hearing a faint fizz escape as he popped the tab. It was late, the moonlight streaming in across the kitchen through the worn curtains and pooling on the kitchen floor— after Tami had crashed in their bed at the apartment after a long day at work and Freddie was sleeping soundly in his crib, Lip had come by the Gallagher house, without really knowing why. He just needed to clear his head, to get some distance from Tami and all her relentless nagging about moving and apartment hunting and his colossally obvious fuck-up with the bikes— he just needed some space, some less stifling air to breathe outside of their half-packed apartment crammed with boxes lining the walls.

It was funny; no matter how much energy Lip had poured into he and Tami’s first apartment, into painting the walls and agonizing over their kitchen backsplash like it was his first-born son, whenever Lip thought about home, whenever he felt that pit of uneasiness growing in his stomach and he just needed a place where he could lie back on a couch and loosen the knots in his shoulders and breathe in familiar air that would fill him up, instead of the too-clean smell of Tami’s flowery potpourri that she’d placed on the expensive coffee table in their living room— Lip always found his feet leading him across the slabs of sidewalk and past the chain link fences towards the Gallagher house, no matter the time of night. He had only been in the house for a few minutes before he felt the tight-knit something in his chest begin to unfurl— he didn’t even want to start to think about what was lodged there. This had been a crazy fucking couple of months, and he wasn’t going to start getting sappy about selling the house now, not when they were so close. He’d dug a hole too deep this time, and he needed the money. He couldn’t fuck up again— not with Freddie to take care of. No matter what it cost him.

So that’s how Lip ended up sitting at the Gallagher kitchen table at 2 a.m. on a Thursday night, sipping at an overly-sugary pop that was no substitute for what he really wanted to be drinking right now—he could imagine how it would warm the insides of his stomach, how it would cushion whatever weird fucking ache was in his chest right now. But— no. Fuck no. He wasn’t going to do that now. Everything about selling the house, about moving on, was about getting his shit straight— about leaving the bad parts of this sagging roof and these stained floorboards behind him.

Lip slouched in the wooden kitchen chair, scrolling on his phone and finally letting out a breath he didn’t really know he had been holding in all day, when he heard a creaking of footsteps padding at the top of the stairs— too heavy to be Liam or Debbie, too careful and unfumbling to be Frank dragging himself through the house. Lip flickered a glance up from where he was sitting and met Ian’s eyes as he turned the corner of the stairs, his skin looking translucent and overly pale in the moonlight like the ginger motherfucker he was.

Ian nodded his head towards Lip in acknowledgement, like he wasn’t surprised in the slightest that his older brother with a whole ass family and apartment of his own was decidedly squatting in the kitchen of his childhood home, drinking a pathetic-looking can of Dr. Pepper. Ian slid open the fridge door, grabbing a beer and swiftly popping the cap off by knocking the bottle on the side of the counter—and then in an instant it became one of those quiet, familiar nights when it was just Lip and Ian in the kitchen, sometimes letting easy conversations flow between them, but other times, just like this— just sinking into each other’s presence in the silence. Ian’s shadow mingling with the moonlight on the kitchen floor immediately snapped the atmosphere from lonely and self-pitying and stale to something lighter, something familiar—like the worn, buttery leather of a baseball glove that fits just right.

Instantly Lip was brought back to so many nights before this, of he and Ian orbiting each other in the kitchen at night— when they were kids and would creep down the stairs and eat fistfuls of junk food that Fiona had forbidden, or steal warm sips of the open beers Frank had left on the counter. This was where they’d processed Monica’s return, late at night while they passed a cigarette between them and Ian hadn’t tried to hide the tears that were freely rolling down his freckled cheeks, back when they were both just confused kids who clung to each other— this was where they’d processed Frank’s alcoholic meltdowns, too many to count, and all the love and loss and confusion that had passed between these walls, all the collateral damage of living in this fucking neighborhood. And Lip felt a sudden pang in his gut, sharp and present, when he realized that it might be one of the last nights that he and Ian got to spend in the kitchen like this.

Lip immediately shoved the thought down with all his might, a hydraulic press squeezing out any sentimentality. He had to do this— for Freddie, for Tami. He had to man up and move on, even if it meant physically wounding the crumbling walls to ease the pain of the parallel jagged wounds somewhere deep in his chest, or screaming and shouting until veins popped in his neck, so loud that he knew he was radiating his pain outwards like a fucking atomic bomb.

But tonight, Lip had no more fight left to give. He just wanted to let these four walls hold him one last time, without even realizing that was what he had needed until this moment. Ian slid a chair out from the kitchen table and sat beside him, leaning back and dragging out a slow, sleepy breath.

Lip cleared his throat, softly. “Where’s Mick?”

“Passed out upstairs.” Ian scrubbed a hand over his face. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Lip raised his eyebrow, almost involuntarily, and Ian immediately jutted his chin up in a half-nod, an affirmation, as he leaned back even farther and took the first sip of his beer. No, he wasn’t manic and yes, he was fine. After all the years that had passed since Ian was still figuring this shit out, Lip sometimes forgot that checking in on him wasn’t really his job, not anymore.

Lip took another sip from his soda can, a movement to fill the easy silence. “How was your guys’ night?”

Ian shrugged non-committally, his shoulders still slumped back in the chair, his lips puckered around the mouth of the bottle as he stared off into the distance at the peeling kitchen wallpaper. “Eh. It was fine. I dragged Mickey out to try and make more gay friends. Ended up being a mistake.”

Lip held back a laugh, taking a sip from his own drink to mask his smirk. He had ample auditory evidence that Mickey was plenty as gay as Ian, but it was still hard to imagine Mickey leaning into all of this shit— Ian used to wear golden underwear and frequent gay clubs and go to social justice brunches, but none of that really seemed like it was Mickey’s scene.

“Oh yeah? Mickey not the easiest person to befriend?” Lip said it with his eyebrows raised, like the joke was obvious.

Ian looked up at him, like he’d been snapped out of a sleepy train of thought, staring earnestly like Lip’s jab had flown right over his head. “Actually, it was kind of my fault. I was the one who made us leave this dinner party thing we got invited to. They were all talking shit about the Southside, about how they hated their families, and I couldn’t really… connect with them, I guess.”

Lip pondered that, taking a breath and stretching his arms above his head. God, he was sore— he hadn’t even been fucking working, aside from hauling those bikes from place to place to avoid the cops, but all the pent up stress and tension was starting to linger in his bones.

“Yeah, it was the same for me. In college, or whatever. Joaquin was the only person I really talked to, because he got all the shit I was always going through.”

Ian nodded contemplatively—but he was staring off into space again, almost like he was half asleep. Lip took another sip of his soda. He could bring up the house shit again right now—it was all that they’d been talking about for the past few weeks—but for some reason it felt too raw, too intense to bring up right now, like it would cut through this peaceful moment, this island in the vast sea of uncertainty Lip knew he was bringing down on all of their heads. So in this moment, he opted for smoother waters.

“Why’d you guys go looking for new friends, anyways?”

Ian finally broke out of whatever drowsy, pensive trance he’d been in, his lips sloping into a smile. “Mickey kept giving me shit for always doing what you do, after breakfast today. I figured… I don’t know, I just got all pissy and tried to prove him wrong.”

Lip felt the corner of his mouth tick upward at that. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

Ian grinned, and held out his beer bottle, stretching his arm across the table. Lip tapped it with his soda can with a light “Cheers,” then took the final sip. He crushed the can to a disk on the table, pressing it down firmly with the heel of his palm and watching the sides compress. Ian’s eyes were cast downward at the table, watching his movements.

“How’s stuff with you and Tami going, all the packing and shit?”

Lip turned the flattened can on its side, contemplatively spinning it like a top on the table and fidgeting with it between his fingers.

“Honestly? I’m fucking exhausted.”

He could hear the breathiness as he said it, how deflated his own voice sounded. And Lip knew could make himself say more— he knew if anyone would get it, Ian would.

“It’s just… fuck, man.”

He looked up and Ian was staring directly at him now, his expression unguarded— listening. Listening like he always did in these moments. Lip let out a low chuckle, trying to shield his own vulnerability.

“How’d we get so fucking old? How is this… it, y’know? Finally leaving the fucking nest, or whatever.”

Ian smiled, placing his beer on the table. “I think you already left the nest when you had a baby and moved into an apartment with your girlfriend.”

Lip shrugged, fiddling with the crushed can again between his fingertips. “Yeah. Guess you’re right.”

“And you are the one making us do this, for the record.”

If Ian’s tone wasn’t as playful or as tentative as it was, Lip would have worried that he was upset— but judging by Ian’s still-comfortable slouch and his steady expression, Lip knew he was fine— he was weathering the storm, just like Lip was.

Ian leaned forward.

“Hey. Mickey was giving me shit—but it is true. You’re my best friend, even though you can be a fucking asshole sometimes.” Ian’s lips curved into a crooked smile. “Nothing’s gonna change that.”

Ian’s eyes flickered around the kitchen as he spoke, and Lip heard everything that was unsaid. Even though you’re kicking us out of the house. Even though you’re changing everything. Even though there isn’t a focal point to our lives anymore.

You’re my best friend.

And Lip felt that pang in his gut again, sharp like a dagger.

He’d said it before, and he’d had no problem saying it over and over again in Mickey’s absence, up until the months before the wedding— Ian did always go a little bit “loco” when Mickey was around.

Which, fuck him, I guess, for caring about his little brother with an undiagnosed mental illness who was off living in the Milkovich House of Horrors slash meth lab with Mickey fucking Milkovich, the bully with greasy hair who Lip wrote papers for in high school and who now was a literal, actual, godforsaken pimp. Lip had seen a teenage Ian bruised and drunk and curled into himself crying over Mickey too many times to ever think that this shit was a good idea— and years later, when Ian almost threw away everything, almost threw away stability and sanity and his fucking family to follow Mickey Milkovich across the Mexican border, Lip knew he had to say something, even though it was an unspoken rule that he and Ian didn’t really critique each other’s love lives since the Mandy-and-Karen fiascos of years past.

So he’d said it, that day in the kitchen, after Ian had returned on a Greyhound bus and they were still processing the dull pain of Monica’s loss— and Ian had taken the feedback with a closed-lip smile, like his head was somewhere else, as he picked at the corner of the beer bottle label with his thumb.

And then less than a year later Mickey was released anyways, and ended up standing in a tank top and boxers in the middle of the Gallagher living room, when the house was crawling with strangers and Freddie was barely two weeks old— and Lip had taken in a sharp breath, a bundle of hesitant nerves sprouting for whatever the fuck this situation was going to become; but not one that he could really give attention to, with all the other bullshit that was pulling at his focus, like the desperate screeching of his newborn kid and the mascara running down Tami’s face.

Later that night, when he’d had a spare moment to breathe and Tami was finally calmed down and sleeping in their cramped bedroom, he’d run into Ian in the moonlit hallway as he was stumbling his way out of the bathroom, drowsily rubbing his eyes with his hair sticking up. And Lip had stopped him with a whisper, placing a hand to tap Ian’s shoulder as Ian blinked the sleep from his eyes.

“Hey. So uh… I see Mickey’s out.”

He’d seen the defenses immediately raise in Ian’s eyes, like he knew what Lip was going to say next.

“Yeah.” Ian had said it soft, quietly, like he was afraid of someone waking.

You sure that’s a good idea? Lip could feel the words itching on the tip of his tongue, and he was aching to say them again, all these years later— and yes, maybe his head was so wrapped up in his own shit that he didn’t really have the authority to be doling out relationship advice to his little brother right now, but so much of this reminded him of things that had happened in the past, of Mickey Milkovich crashing on Ian’s bedroom floor until he inevitably couldn’t anymore, until the pressure cooker of his presence mingled with Ian’s inevitably exploded— or at least that was how Lip saw it. There were too many wounds, and they were bound to leave scars— Lip was honestly surprised as fuck that the Gallagher house was Mickey’s first stop out of prison, after everything that had gone down between the two of them.

But, for Ian’s sake, Lip tried to reign it in—despite the fact that they’d just been commiserating about “being in love with crazy people” as they crouched on the living room stairs the night before as Ian sipped on a beer, sputtering out a “fuck no” when Lip asked if he was going to marry Mickey (which was an equally as batshit question as if Lip was going to marry Tami). Despite all of this— now that Mickey was back, Lip could see that this was something Ian wanted, that this was something Ian was treading carefully into, one more time. He was definitely stronger now; even Lip could see that.

“He gonna be hanging around here a while?”

Ian had given a gentle, sleepy smile. “Yeah. Think so.”

And Lip had just reached out, and clapped Ian’s sleep-warmed body on the shoulder. “Sounds good, man.”

Ian had walked the remaining length of the hallway, opening the bedroom door— and in the shadows, Lip could see that Mickey was curled on the old, concave mattress of Ian’s single bed that he’d slept on since they were kids— and Ian had lifted the thin blanket and pressed up next to him, the mattress sinking beneath their collective weight, settling in and pressing a kiss to the top of a snoring Mickey’s head without a second thought. Huh.

That was the beginning of Lip starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, this time with Mickey would be different— and it was. As Mickey started to become a daily fixture in the Gallagher house, constantly pinned to Ian’s side, Lip had noticed how something solid had shifted—they weren’t reckless kids anymore, for starters. He hadn’t really seen Mick and Ian physically together since Ian was catapulting off the deep end, in the weeks after Ian had gotten dragged away by the P.I.s and Mickey had gotten locked up for some crazy fucking stunt trying to murder Sammy. Things were too intense then, too technicolor—for some reason, Lip thought Mickey being back meant that they’d return to being that way.

But now here was this guy, placing a gentle hand on Ian’s chest and saying “Woah, wait a minute” to protect Ian from the batshit P.O. that had just barged through the door—and Lip couldn’t help but realize that was something that he would have done to protect Ian, in a universe where Mickey was still behind bars.

After then, Lip just kept seeing it— the ways that Mickey showed up for Ian. Not even in the ways that he used to, like forcing Ian to take his meds back when everything was uncertain and Ian was slipping through their fingers like sand in a sieve; but in a more solid, adult way, in a way that made Ian buzz whenever he was around him, in a way that made Ian happier and lighter. And maybe it was just the sex—part of it had to be the fucking sex, considering how loud they always were— but Lip realized, after a couple of weeks of Mickey’s presence in the house before their whole eventual engagement fiasco, that Mickey was Ian’s friend, in addition to all the other things he was. After all the years of uncertainty, they’d finally grown the fuck up— Mickey was someone who brought out the best in Ian, and it was like Ian had been waiting for this moment, for Mickey by his side, before he could fully and totally bloom.

And it was weird how emotional that made Lip— after seeing Ian as a hollow shell in a jumpsuit pushing garbage cans around a college campus, or pretending to be someone he wasn’t who wore patterned button-up shirts and threw around fucking useless five-dollar words that Lip didn’t understand like “gender identity” and “intersectionality”— Ian had finally made it, beyond being the bruised, scrawny kid getting sexually abused by a creepy 30 year old man in the back room of a mini-mart, or getting high off his ass every night and starving himself to fit into a golden thong, or wearing a baggy janitor suit with dark circles under his eyes and pallid skin. Ian had done that shit on his own, and made himself into something in Mickey’s absence, sure— but so much of him being the full, happy person he was in this moment was because of Mickey, and Lip could see that now.

Ian was himself— he wasn’t a shadow anymore.

And that was why Lip had said he thought he should marry Mickey, in the end— because there was no doubt in his mind that Mickey Milkovich wasn’t going anywhere, not anytime soon.

Lip could still see it now, in the way that Ian was lounging comfortably in the living room, like he had his whole life— but now Mickey was resting just as comfortably beside him. It was a few weeks after that night in the kitchen, and Lip had just pitched the FOR SALE sign in the Gallagher front yard— now everyone was huddled in the living room, for what they now knew was one of their last lingering nights in this space. Liam was sitting next to Lip, pressed into his side, seeking the comfort that Lip knew he needed through all of these massive fucking changes— Franny was playing on the floor and Debbie was sitting beside her, and across the room Ian and Mickey were pressed side-by-side on the fraying loveseat, scrolling through the lease document for their new apartment on the battered laptop. They were murmuring things to each other that Lip couldn’t really make out— but Mickey was pressed against Ian, slouching into him slightly, and Ian’s eyes were light. In his flicker of a glance towards them, Lip noticed that Mickey was playing with Ian’s hand, swiping a finger over his wedding ring, as Ian scrolled through the paperwork and started to read all the contract information out loud— and Lip smiled to himself as he tried to tune out all the sappy bullshit that was going on in that corner of the room.

Ian was going to be just fine.

Hour later Lip strode out the door to the front porch, a cigarette he’d bummed off of Ian wrapped in his fist— he didn’t smoke anymore, especially not under the same roof as Tami, but there was something about the gravity of this night, of the flimsy red and white sign rooted in the front yard, that made Lip’s fingertips itch for a cigarette and made his brain buzz with the want of nicotine to dull the sharp edges of everything he was feeling—for smoke to float in front of his face while he sat on the front steps just one more time.

He perched on the front steps as the sun was just starting to set, the fish-scale shadows of the chain link fence encroaching further and further into the yard as he flicked at his lighter.

He heard a light cough from somewhere in front of him— and saw that Mickey was outside too, blowing smoke out of his mouth and leaning against the fence in the front yard facing the house. Lip nodded at him in acknowledgement, then took the first drag. Fuck, he’d needed this.

“You gonna miss this place?”

Mickey said it into the open air, like he isn’t really talking to Lip— his eyes were off in the distance, staring at the paint-chipped front façade of the house. Which was fucking bullshit—why would Mickey be staring absentmindedly, almost fucking wistfully, at the Gallagher house?

It’s not like he and Mickey didn’t talk— they definitely did, pragmatically flinging banter across the kitchen to each other at breakfast when coordinating rides for Liam or grocery list items when Debbie was off at work, existing in the same space every morning— and Mickey helped him haul literal tons of iron when he’d helped him steal the bikes, had haggled over his cut. But never like this—never with any weight, never in a way that was this casual, or this familial, about fucking feelings.

Part of that was probably because it was hard as fuck to worm your way into the Gallagher family—as wide open as their door always seemed to be, with people filtering in and out and crashing on hallway floors or the lumpy couch, this house only continued to function because of its nucleus— because of Lip and Ian and Carl and Debbie and Fiona and Liam and yes, even Frank. Everyone else was a passerby, an impermanent blip crossing through the way station; Jimmy-Steve, Sean, Carl’s slew of girls, Mandy and Karen.

Monica.

None of them were Gallaghers— none of them considered this place to be home, or got all the privileges that came with that. The Gallaghers, the real Gallaghers, had seen every one of these people come and go— and something slippery suddenly crept into Lip’s realization that despite all the odds, despite all of his doubts about him—Mickey had chosen to stay close to these four walls just as much as Lip had.

“Mickey’s family.” Ian had said it over a mouthful of bacon at breakfast a few weeks ago, and Lip had immediately shot him down; but maybe there was some truth to what Ian had said, some truth to the oddly unfailing consistency to Mickey’s ten years. Which meant that maybe…

Maybe it was time to make a fucking peace offering, or whatever.

Lip hummed in acknowledgement to Mickey’s question, pulling himself out of his train of thought.

“Hey. Mick.”

Mickey looked up at where Lip was leaning on the porch, his brows furrowing like he was bracing himself for a confrontation. “Yeah?”

“My head’s been too far up my ass the past couple of months to say it, but, uh. I’m glad you’re family, y’know?”

He’d been passively thinking it for months— but he’d never said it to Mickey, never this directly. He hoped Mickey got it, without brushing it off or shooting him down with some snarky fucking comment like he always did. Lip meant it— he was glad, he was grateful, he was ready to let Mickey Milkovich keep being a part of his fucked up familial life. And he hoped that Mickey saw that.

Mickey just rolled his eyes, taking another drag of his cigarette—but he didn’t say anything in reply, not for a moment. And then:

“You’re as sappy as your fucking brother, Phillip.”

#i’ve said it once and ill say it again nothing makes me more emo than ian and mickey sharing ian’s old bed #also sorry this was kinda ANGSTY what can i say #lip is Too Much #gallavich #gallavich fic #shameless #shameless fic #gallavich fanfiction #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #lip gallagher #ian and mickey #ian x mickey #ixm

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